Digital digital h. Whats ahead for afghanistan in 2016. Today a discussion on the political and humanitarian situation there with former military personnel and the executive director of doctors without borders. Theyll cover the 2015 hospital bombing in afghanistan and the u. S. Military presence. Thats live today at 10 30 a. M. On cspan. Tomorrow republican senator rand paul holds a town hall in new hampshire. Live at 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 2. Cspan takes you on the road to the white house and into the classroom. This year, our student cam documentary contest asks students to tell us what issues they want to hear from the president ial candidates. Follow cspans road to the white house coverage, and get all the details about our student cam contest at cspan. Org. A new state attorneys general push back as what they see as overreach from the federal government. From the federalis societys National Lawyers convention this is just under an hour. If you could all take your seats, ladies and gentlemen. My name is leonard leo. I serve as executive Vice President of the Federalist Society. Its a privilege to have you all here in washington, d. C. , for our annual convention. We hope you are enjoying the different sessions. Well have a conversation this morning about state attorneys general and this is an issue of great importance to the Federalist Society and should be of great importance to the American People because in many states, state attorney general is one of the most important Co Constitutional officers, oftentimes only one of two or three or four constitutional officers in a state. There has been an enormous amount of activity in the state attorney general space over the past few years. We are seeing an unprecedented amount of activity by state ags, particularly with regards to pushback against federal overreach that oftentimes comes in the form of litigation. Not only are there an unprecedented number of lawsuits being brought against the federal government by state ags but an unprecedented number of state ags joining in the lawsuits. Its a very interesting time. And weve got a group of great people here who are going to have a conversation about this. Im going to introduce our facilitator and moderator, adam white, who has been a longtime volunteer leader in the Federalist Society, is now, i believe, serving with distinction at the hoover institution. On monday. Starting on monday and he just came out with a wonderful piece in the Weekly Standard which is out today, i believe, called judging roberts, the chief justice of the United States ten years in. So not on this particular topic but well worth the read. So with that im going to turn things over to adam. Thank you. [ applause ] state attorneys general occupy one of the most important and complex roles in american government. Though elected or selected politically, in office their duty is to the rule of law. Theyre responsible for vindicating both the laws of the state and the rights of their citizens and the United States constitutions separation of powers and federalism. Here today we have two its hard to think of two better speakers on this subject. One newly elected and serving this year, the attorney general in the state of nevada. Another who served as the attorney general for the state of alabama before joining the 11th circuit. Judge william h. Pryor jr. Judge of the u. S. Cort urt of appealsr the 11th circuit since 2004. He served as attorney general of alabama from 1997 to 2004. When first appointed he was the youngest attorney general in the nation. He was elected and reelected in 1998 and 2002. In 2002 he received the highest percentage of votes of any statewide candidate. Graduated magna cum laude from t tulane law school. Were also joined by the honorable adam laxalt. Attorney general, state of nevada. He has been serving as the attorney general since january of 2015. Form former lieutenant in the u. S. Navy. Volunteered to serve in a combat zone in iraq, had operating base camp victory where his team was in charge of keeping more than 20,000 detainees during the surge. He was awarded the joint Service Commendation medal and Iraq Campaign medal. His unit was awarded the joint meritorious union award. He served as a special ausa. Taught law. Advised at the state department and serves on the board of trustees for Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada and cofounded the saint Thomas Moore Society in nevada. Graduated mag na cum laude from georgetown. Lets welcome our speakers and well begin. If i may begin with you, judge pryor, since you have served a little while ago, what was it like serving as attorney general then . It was a different world. I became the attorney general of alabama in january of 1997. Jeff sessions, my former boss, had just been elected to the United States senate, and the governor appointed me to finish his term. And the first issue really on my plate was whether the state would join the National Tobacco litigation. I had served as the chair of a task force the year before for both the governor and the attorney general as i was Jeff Sessions deputy ag, in evaluating whether the state should file such a lawsuit. Our neighboring states, minneapolis and flori mississippi and florida, had. Our recommendation was that we not do so. We thought it was contrary to law, certainly to the law of alabama. That was our perspective. And bad Public Policy on a lot of levels. And of course, there were a growing number of states that were joining in that litigation. It was very much akin to the kind of litigation that states did collectively back then. A lot of that, i think, really was an outgrowth of the era during the Reagan Administration when antitrust enforcement changed at the federal level and went more to a consumer welfare model perspective, a law and economics kind of perspective. And states who had a more populist perspective of antitrust enforcement and oldschool kind of liberal populist perspective resisted that and engaged in some collective litigation. So it was very much an era where states were proregulation. Looked in many ways to the federal government for leadership. The tobacco litigation, which i refused to join, eventually landed in the hands of congress for a while. They wanted many of the states wanted congress to step in. So it was you know, it was really a different era. There was a time when there was a case before the Supreme Court of the United States involving whether congress will the power under the Commerce Clause to create a civil remedy, a tort remedy, for a victim of an intrastate rape. Whether that was a proper exercise of congressional power. 36 state attorneys general filed a friend of the court brief in support of federal power and the power of congress to create that right. I was the only state attorney general who filed a friend of the court brief on the other side and said this is really [ applause ] this is really the province of the states. Thats, of course, the way the Supreme Court of the United States ruled. But it gives you a i think, a flavor of how different the environment was. How did things begin to change, then, towards where we are now . You know, thats a tougher question for me to answer because my service ended in 2004. There were a bunch of us, or a core group of us who were dissatisfied with it and started working together, both politically and through litigation. Our state solicitors general, we were in the process of creating those kinds of positions in our office. I created one in my office. Started working together more in Supreme Court litigation. But, you know, really, in many respects, during my whole era i felt as if we were under siege and we were fighting back. I mean, if you look at the tobacco litigation alone, i mean, this was truly remarkable era when state attorneys general collectively brought an industry to agree to a settlement that would bring billions and billions of dollars to State Governments, what could only really be viewed as a form of taxation that they achieved through litigation without any kind of vote of legislative chambers. They gave a huge percentage of those billions of dollars to the lawyers who filed that litigation and conducted that litigation and had been Campaign Contributors to the attorneys general. There were really some corruption issues associated with that and prosecutions associated with that. So, you know, it was an entirely different environment. And i am not sure that i mean, i think maybe the seeds of changing that perspective were laid back then, but when i left office in 2004, i dont think it was anything like the environment that you see now. Lets talk about the environment we see now. Attorney general laxalt. Explain for us what its like to arrive in office actually, i would be curious what spurred you to run for office. Once you settled in, whats your experience been in the first year . Well, you know, federalism was one of the things that inspired me to run for office. If you can believe it, when i was campaigning last year, there isnt a Single Person that knew our solicitor, knew what a solicitor did. Our office hadnt filed a lawsuit protecting a Western State thats been under siege from the federal government for some time now. And politically, you know, republicans and democrats fight federal overreach in a state like nevada. But for whatever reason, the Attorney Generals Office had never been used to protect the state. And i had to literally, in kind of a grassroots fashion, in a short year, go tell people why i was running, tell people what theyre missing from their a. G. S office and what more we do bring to the table. As you can imagine, it excited a lot of people once they said, oh, wow, the attorney general is not just, you know, a boring lawyer that nobody ever hears from. So, thats been a big motivating factor for me. And weve had great opportunity to actually step into that space. We had a solicitor general, technically, but that did not function in the capacity that i think you guys are all used to as a solicitor. So that was the first thing i had to do was bring in a new solicitor general, someone that most of you many of you know, lawrence van dyke, who had been a solicitor general and said, all right, i need you to help me build an office, because we had zero. And we got into the immigration litigation within a few weeks of being in office. And so we really kicked into high gear. And once people started realizing that we can, whether its waters of the u. S. , endangered species, a bunch of things well talk about during this panel, people have been very excited that the Attorney Generals Office can do this and that we can protect the state. Unfortunately, as i now have to keep telling people around the state, places like texas have 20 in their sgs office and i still only have one. We have been a victim of our success that people are, wow, why arent we fighting this or that. Give me some time here. Weve got to build this sgs office. It is, i think, a very different time from when a. G. S were predominantly used to basically crush businesses. There is now nearly 30 republican a. G. S. I think there is a huge hesitancy to go down that path. I know philosophy is, if we think a business is doing something wrong, were going to reach the business and see whats going on, get their explanation first, see if we can reach an accommodation. As opposed to, i think, in judge pryors day, basically surprise lawsuits without ever speaking to the other side. Its thats not really my goal. We have to protect the consumer, but there are more effective ways to protect the consumer. It is its got to be a huge sea change, probably weekly we have something involving federalism in our space that were looking at. And it is i suspect the judge was was in the wilderness with four or five a. G. S that were willing to do a, quoteunquote, multistate litigation against an administration. Now when were looking at joining lawsuits i believe most of this started with the obamacare lawsuit. Youre looking at 20 to 20 well, sometimes to 30 or more a. G. S with republicandemocrat crossover. I think we are entering a new era that whether thats we have found our new voice or whether this administration, the timing of how this administration has acted along with all of these new a. G. S has provided a Perfect Point of inflection where there is a lot for us to do. I would be curious. For both of you, your office requires, or required, you to interpret the law, interpret the constitution and decide as a practical matter whether to either bring suit against the federal government. Join a suit. Or in the other direction, youre defending state laws or youre choosing in some from time to time not to enforce a state law on constitutional grounds. I would just be curious, what how do you approach a question like that, both the sort of interpretive question and the practical tasks of carrying out the office. Thats a fun topic. I have a perspective that is perhaps a little bit different from what has been expressed by many of the state attorneys general who currently serve, and i think its been illustrated during the marriage litigation. So my perspective is that a lot of this depends on state law. Not all attorneys general offices are created the same way. 43, though, of the 50 are elected. Five are appointed by the governor i think still. And one by a state Supreme Court, one by a state legislature. You have to make sure you understand what the state law is in each jurisdiction. But, as a general rule, the attorney general is the chief legal officer of the state and independently elected and has we dont have a unitary executive at the state level. And the state attorney general has the Constitutional Authority to state the legal position of the State Government in court. And the attorney general takes an oath, and my perspective always as a state attorney general was i had an obligation to take the constitution seriously and to state the correct legal position. And if that meant that i had to confess that a state law was unconstitutional, i did so. If, you know i didnt think that it was productive to have debates about doing my job. See, weve seen in the context of the marriage litigation a year ago i gave a lecture at case western, and i criticized the conservatives who say that the answer to the marriage litigation was to say, well, im doing my job, im defending state law, without regard to what the merits of the argument might be. From my perspective, you ought to be talking about the marriage the merits. What does the constitution actually require. What is the correct legal position. I dont think its productive to just have a debate about process. And we have a long history in our country of executive review. Each branch has we forget about it, but each branch has a responsibility of taking the constitution seriously, interpreting the constitution independently. Thomas jefferson refused to prosecute under the alien sedition acts though they had been upheld by the federal courts, the federalist judges. He pardoned those convicted under that law. Andrew jackson vetoed the National Bank act on constitutional groundsu position. I think we are in a unique era where the administration and various federal agencies are virtually relentless in what theyre willing to do to expand their initial statutory grounds for doing whatever theyre doing. I think that its incumbent on congress and i know some of the congress elected congressmen and men and women and senators, do start theyre starting to take seriously that they have their own responsibility in evaluating whether laws they pass are constitutional. I think many of our judges and a few of our i know a few of our Supreme Court judges expect that. They assume thats going on. Unfortunately, you hear in the political space all the time, hey, its our job to just pass the law. Well let the judges figure out whether its constitutional. And i think its important that we reverse that course, because first of all, judges are 5050 at best these days of actually holding those lines of whats constitutional and not constitutional because, obviously, there is a lean towards deference that continues to go against our direction. So, i think the a. G. S have provided this incredibly Important Role in the last few years. This year i just feel so fortunate to be in the position i am in at this moment in time in our history to be able to File Lawsuits and gain very important injunctions. And we make that argument all the time. Were not policy folks, but it is our job to, if we need to, defend the constitution, try to get Something Like the waters of the u. S. Or executive amnesty, get these things frozen, if you will, in the court system so they can go back to the body where theyre supposed to be handled. Lets touch on that a little bit more. I remember years ago a law professor said that the new in the federal government, the new form for federal issues it wasnt the senate anymore it was now the administrative state. That was years ago. Its probably even more so now as we see that these administrative programs, you mentioned waters of the United States. Endangered species act. I would like to hear your perspective on operating as a Co Constitutional officer on behalf of the state looking at the programs and how they interact with your state and deciding what action to take to push back against fe